As data and voice transmissions received by access terminals (e.g., mobile devices) increase, it becomes increasingly difficult to regulate the traffic supported over various carriers due to inconsistent real-time capabilities of the access terminals. Conventionally, in order for access terminals to throttle certain applications by increasing real-time processing capabilities, all carriers must be turned off simultaneously. Shutting off all carriers effectively shuts down all forward link (FL) traffic to an access terminal from an access node (e.g., a base station). Conventional systems are unable to use the available capacity at the access terminal to dynamically select which FL carriers should be received, based on currently active applications implemented at the access terminal. Therefore, there is a need in the art for selectively adapting the FL carriers based on the performance capabilities available at the access terminal.